


The Hands Of The Queen

by jalendavi_lady



Series: How The First Queen-Above-The-Neck Earned Her Name [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Court Politics, F/M, Guilt, Hypothermia, Marriage Proposal, Misunderstandings, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secrets, Shame, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: Tyrion gets in a bit of trouble after the Long Night and the situation snowballs from a misunderstanding into something more serious. Canon compliant through the end of s08e03.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some continuation ideas I was already floating for "Tyrion's Horrible Long Night" looked like they could work as a good fix-it, so here we go. Relevant background from that fic will be included in this one when it becomes important.
> 
> Laundry list of relationship tags is because this piece is very much going to be a lot more focused on the character interactions involved than on anything resembling a plot (although there definitely is one). That and I have a tendency to over-tag.

In the morning light after the battle, the defenders of Winterfell slept wherever they could find a sheltered safe place without too many bodies nearby.

Cleaning up should have come first, but few had the strength left for it without a rest. Even the people who had tried to shelter underground.

Tyrion and Varys passed it in what little was left intact of Varys' room. Tyrion's had been entirely overrun.

The one bright spot was that he had already accepted that his remaining possessions were most likely a complete loss before the dead of House Stark had risen. He'd had to replace his entire wardrobe so many times now that he did not think he would have a problem explaining his needs to nearly any woman who knew how to hold a needle. It was merely an annoyance.

And if he felt comfortable learning how to sew instead of merely do the roughest mending, it wouldn't even be that much of an annoyance.

Given how devastated Westeros had grown - he hadn't realized it properly until he had gone from the largely intact cities of Essos to the war-ravaged fields at the Battle of Goldroad - he was beginning to think that might be a good idea once life calmed down. At the least, he might be able to truly mend things.

So he found himself resting in a corner using a borrowed blanket from the bed. Varys still had outerwear fit for the outside air now coming in from the holes elsewhere in the wing.

Tyrion did not. His thickest cloak was in shreds, and the clothes he had left were better fit for the weather at Dragonstone, not a damaged Northern castle the day after a blizzard. He hadn't needed thicker underground and he hadn't thought clearly enough about Northern realities early enough to bring any personal belongings underground.

And no one else had tried to save possessions other than what they would need to care for children during the battle and immediately after. Even Sansa had only carried in the clothes on her back and her hidden dagger. He might have been able to make an argument for his own cloak. Or thought far enough ahead to put it on him when he went down and then taken it off.

But everyone had been warned how dangerous sweating could be in these temperatures once the sweat started freezing, and Tyrion had been too cautious about overheating.

Even with the blanket, he was cold enough to feel the hair on his arms constantly remain standing up. He shivered under it every few minutes when a particularly bad breeze came through.

Eventually, he gave up on the room and their small fire. He gave the blanket back and went walking in search of a better option.

* * *

Tyrion found Jaime, Podrick, and Brienne near the big fireplace in the feast hall of Winterfell, a room almost completely untouched.

Others were scattered around the room, including no few people using the tables as a makeshift gathering point to treat minor injuries, but they were obviously tending the fire.

He had found them before dawn, when all of the trio needed badly to peel off armor and he'd needed to find his queen. He'd stayed as short a time as he could, but it was enough for all of them to be sure they were all fine and for him to reassure Brienne that Sansa was doing at least as well herself.

"Jaime?" he called out softly when he got close, knowing better than to startle any of them right now.

His brother waved him closer to the fire in response.

He joined them gladly. "There are holes in the roof near where we were staying. Too much wind. And my warmest cloak was destroyed."

Jaime raised an eyebrow at him.

"...along with the rest of the clothes in my trunk," he admitted. "Would anyone mind if I tried to get some sleep here, where it's warmer?"

"Lord Tyrion, you are the Hand of the Queen. I highly doubt it matters what we think."

"But fairest of Sers, we are guests in your sworn liege's house and unfamiliar with what may bring offense."

Brienne glared at him.

Jaime laughed.

"I assure you, oh newest knight of Westeros, I am dearly honored that it was my error that helped that along and that I was permitted to raise the first toast."

She relaxed the least bit she could have and glanced over at the tables. "It's not going to be accepted by the rest of Westeros."

"If your liege and your friends and your squire accept it, who else matters?"

"Father won't. Fighting yes, knighting no."

"The worst he can do is disown you, and believe me, the anticipation is worse than the reality."

"You weren't disowned," Jaime reminded him.

"I don't know what else you call denying an oldest eligible son open heirship, to the point of marrying him off and claiming his oldest will be heir to another castle entirely. Plus rigging a trial to remove me from the succession of Casterly Rock in a more permanent fashion." He yawned and leaned against the warm wall.

Brienne nodded at Podrick and he left them.

"And if he doesn't disown you, well then being a lord of a castle outranks being a knight, so I don't see why being a lady of a castle would be any different. Jaime's only a ser because he took the oath of the kingsguard and set his inheritance aside until after he could have claimed it. Wait long enough and your style will be the same regardless. Simply outlast him and know you can fully claim what's yours when he's gone."

"Says the patricide," she responded, but at least she was smiling a little now. "Seeing as he bought my first armor and my first blade, and paid tutors so I would know how to fight, I'll take your words but not your example as advice."

Tyrion laughed.

Podrick walked over with an armload of blankets. "Some of the Vale knights pulled everything out of the castle laundry, my lord. Lady Stark can yell at them later, they say. And it's best not to lie on bare stone, in this weather it'll take the heat out of you no matter how close you are to a fire."

"Thank you, Podrick."

"He's already made that mistake himself when we were traveling," Brienne told him.

"Of course, he never traveled above the Neck when he was my squire and we weren't roughing it. Honestly, if it hadn't been that the alternative was so horrible, I'd say he was handed off to me as an insult to him."

"I do have a history of ending up squiring for people who can't knight me," he quietly added.

"Technically, Ser Brienne could now," Jaime told him.

He shook his head. "Not just to prove she can. And no insult meant, Ser, but if it's for the battle there's a queen here and a lady of a great house and..."

"And that's a much more secure future for you than being knighted by someone of questionable oath," Brienne finished for him. "I won't fault you for that, Pod. As long as I get to see it done."

"I claim first toast," Tyrion announced as he arranged the makeshift bedroll and laid down.

"You and your excuses for drinking," she laughed.

* * *

The feel in the room had shifted from late morning to evening before Tyrion woke again.

He yawned and stretched.

Somewhere nearby someone was serving food. He could smell it.

He was surprisingly not hungry for someone whose last significant meal was almost a day ago. Or at least he thought so until he took into account just how much sitting still or sleeping was packed into those hours.

Either that or Brienne - Ser Brienne - and anyone else who had ever judged his drinking had a point about how many grapes he ingested as wine before the battle and during it.

Someone cleared their throat from the closest chair and Tyrion rolled to face them.

It was Missandei.

"The queen commands your presence when you wake."

He sat up fast enough he felt woozy. "You could have woken me yourself," he told her.

"Her grace was precise in her instruction."

It was never a good thing when Missandei enunciated the Westeros Common Tongue that cleanly. Her consonants could hold a sharper edge than dragonglass when she wanted them to.

And right now, they felt as dangerous.

Tyrion stood, not bothering to tidy after himself. No doubt someone else would be claiming the warm place near the fire shortly, someone who had needed to obey duty all day.

"Then I am at her grace's command. Lead on."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Queen Daenerys Targaryen of the many, many titles was as stern as Tyrion had ever seen her.

He'd last seen her slumped over Jorah Mormont's body, weeping while Drogon curled around them protectively. He'd managed to get the most basic report about the events underground to her - that the dead had risen everywhere, that there had been losses, but that the members of her court had made it through and that he and Varys had been able to do some good for whatever value the Northerners might place on that.

The shift was striking.

The shift was terrifying.

"You summoned me, your grace?"

"Why did you lie to me about what happened underground last night?"

Tyrion felt his brow furrow. He hadn't lied. He hadn't even stretched the truth. There was no possible gain for doing so, not when the truth was so favorable. "I didn't. The dead rose. I helped fight, after hiding a moment in the initial chaos and figuring out how best to do so. And then we all waited for news from above."

"Missandei told me otherwise."

"And I did not see Missandei from the moment of chaos until Grey Worm called for her from the door. I suspect the same could be said of how long she did not see me. Neither of us can give an eyewitness account about what the other did while there were walking wights in the crypt."

Daenerys did not soften in the least.

If anything, she looked more determined. Maybe even a touch disappointed.

What had he done?

"Is there anything else I need to know?"

"Nothing of any real importance. Nothing that changes anything."

"Oh?"

He only had one guess as to what his offence could have been. "Being underground in the crypt did not agree with me, as I had cautioned in private before the army of the dead came into view, and some time after the wights collapsed it affected me enough for Lady Stark to notice. She offered aid as the hosting lady of a great house, and as a guest in her castle I did not resist."

The queen hadn't grown up in Westeros. She might not know the finer points of hospitality among the nobility, and Missandei certainly hadn't had a chance to learn.

No change. "And why did being down there affect you? You didn't tell me before the battle. How can I know your claim isn't simply an excuse to cover something that happened down there up?"

Tyrion froze, body and mind. This was about the conversation before the wights rose. The one Missandei had disagreed with.

And now the queen had apparently grown paranoid about what his later actions could mean. Or more likely what Sansa's actions could mean.

How could he hope to explain Tysha to the Dragon Queen? A woman bold enough to call her wedding night rape openly in front of her own court and visiting strangers? He'd even cautioned Varys about mentioning even the existence of Tyrion's first marriage when the eunuch had joined the court because he knew how bad witnessing a rape without doing anything of use to stop it would look to Daenerys Targaryen.

A rape would have been bad enough.

The entire Lannister guardhouse? Or so close to it the difference in damage was a matter for the maesters?

Gods have mercy, he still didn't know if Tysha had even survived until the sunrise once she was sent on her way.

He felt himself start shaking very slightly and the world didn't quite seem entirely real anymore.

Daenerys held out her hand, and he knew what it meant.

He fumbled as he took the Hand's pin off of his doublet, knowing far better than to argue.

He'd had a safer run of it than his father had serving the Mad King. Shorter, but safer.

He walked forward and laid it in her palm, then backed up the same distance again.

"Go," she told him quietly.

So, that was it. Not just removal as Hand, but rejection from her court.

"If I may say one thing?" he asked.

Her eyebrow raised.

"There's nothing that says the Hand has to be a man. Only the same traditions that prefer kings to queens." He took a deep breath. "It should have been Missandei for a while now."

"I told you to go." Her voice was like a tinderbox's piece of flint. Hard. Brittle. Likely to give you a nasty cut if you hit it the wrong way hard enough to flake it.

"I obey, your grace."

He backed out of the room without turning his back on her. As respectful as if he were a man just offered a pardon from execution instead of a courtier ripped from all remaining resources he had to his name.

* * *

Walking out of the damaged wing where Daenerys and her court were living did nothing to make the world seem more real.

The smell of food still wafted from the hall where he had slept, and he thought he could see Podrick tending the fire.

What would they all think? The low man, brought low. A great joke to be shared over mead and wine.

He was addled enough at the moment that it almost seemed funny even to him. Some great pun played upon him by the Smith, perhaps.

He was tired of being the plaything of the Seven.

They would know he was no longer Hand the moment he walked into the room. And wasn't his status as guest at Winterfell tied to the status of Daenerys' court in any case?

He might have lost all trace of guest-right.

Given everything that had gone on between the Starks and the Lannisters, it might even be just for him to lose all trace of guest-right.

The thought should have alarmed him but instead he just felt a dull foreboding about what that might mean.

He thought about going to the castle sept, since he couldn't be refused bare shelter there once he was already inside the castle walls, but he already knew it didn't exist anymore. It had been damaged too many times in the past few years and there were more important things to repair. He'd seen the bare foundation when they came out of the crypt, the cracked wreckage of the wooden statues Lady Catelyn had commissioned when Robb was in her belly lying in the snow.

And as he'd been told by the septa when he'd visited it for prayer the first time he was here, it had really only been built for her mother when she married north. Other than Podrick and Brienne, there was no one in the household proper to rebuild it for. Sansa was a daughter of the old gods and the new, but her worship of the Seven didn't need a building. There was a good chance it would be the last thing rebuilt. If it was ever rebuilt.

It felt warmer than it had that morning. Maybe it was only that the wind had finally stopped being as cutting. Or maybe he just couldn't focus on it right now.

The thought that he ought to be worrying about that was easy to push down. He had bigger problems.

He needed a place to think. Someplace he would be left alone to think but that didn't require proper guest right for him to be there.

* * *

Tyrion cautiously walked into the godswood.

He had never been in a proper Northern one before. He had seen a weirwood some distance away from the top of the wall, but never as close as here.

He felt like he ought to feel more out of place, but he was finding it hard to care about anything right now other than trying to secure his immediate future.

"I helped Lady Sansa as much as I thought I could," he found himself explaining as he walked past the marks in the snow from the victors leaving after the battle. "It wasn't much, but then I'm not very much. And I kept my public word not to hurt her and I kept my private word to be faithful and not force her. That has to count for something."

The weirwood tree loomed ahead. It was even more unreal to think the war had ended here. There was a flat rock of promising height nearby and he headed for it.

"I only need a place to sit and think for a little while," he continued. "I have no plans to damage anything or take anything or claim this place. Just to seek a bit of refuge in the woods of my lady's gods."

No response from anything, although the face in the tree looked like it ought to start talking at any moment. The air was still, but it felt warmer.

Then he noticed the pond.

Liquid water, with snow on the ground?

He'd heard rumors there was a hotspring under the earth at Winterfell, but he had never expected it would get to only barely be freezing at the surface.

Was this why it had felt warm enough underground that he hadn't taken his thickest cloak to safety with him?

He brushed the snow off the rock with his sleeve and sat down.

Now, to think about how to proceed from here...


	3. Chapter 3

Sansa had been up well before anyone in the castle who hadn't been on night watch.

It was strange.

Knowing the danger to the North was gone, when no one in her family had ever felt that since before the first battle for the dawn so long ago.

The Night's Watch functionally didn't exist anymore, by oath. That was the bet anyone who joined as a criminal sentence made, after all. If the watch ends for everyone because there's nothing to watch for, everyone walks free. The refocus on the Free Folk had twisted it around, but they weren't a threat anymore either.

Other than the Thenn, but they were the Thenn and almost none of them were left.

And the Wall was gone, too. If you walked the eastern shore of Westeros, you could go straight from the docks at White Haven all the way until you froze to death in the place the Free Folk called the land of always winter without anyone stopping you.

It was her first time waking up to the new reality and she sat still a while, simply soaking it in.

Dangers she had learned about at Old Nan's knee weren't there any more. They were only stories for scaring summer children now

Old Nan wasn't here anymore, either. Sansa wished dearly the old woman could have known they were so close to winning that ancient war.

And she had fought wights. More importantly, she had felled wights. Doing it with Tyrion had only been the frosting on that lemoncake. Varys might not have been able to tell who dropped how many, but he had been able to confirm they each had at least two 'kills'.

Arya had training. What she had done was still astonishing, but she had training.

Sansa hadn't been allowed a chance, first because she would have been too much of a threat armed with any blade and then because she was busy trying to keep Winterfell from burning down from the inside while storing enough food that no one would starve before the first gathering harvest in the woods came in. And she had felled wights.

"I have felled wights," she whispered to the ceiling. "And outtricked a mockingbird. And erased a horror's name and Words and House, down to everything but the Dreadfort itself. And I may yet find a way to erase even that from the face of the world."

The feeling of power was sweet but not overpowering. Sansa was very aware she still had limits and that there were things power should not be used for.

But she also knew there were people who trusted her to wield it.

The few Free Folk who were frightened enough of even Northerners that they had gone hiding in the castle among them. Sansa had spent some time in the day checking all the hiding places and most of them had made it through.

Yesterday had been a time for duty. To quietly make quick contacts, take inventory of who was left and who was injured.

Today, she wanted to celebrate what they had done, all that was left. To actually take a quarter of an hour - maybe even longer, if she dared - and sit and talk with a few people who mattered.

But first, she had one bit of duty left she'd been too exhausted for yesterday by the time people had stopped needing her.

She got up, dressed herself, and went looking for Ser Brienne.

* * *

Whenever he had fought in battle or executed the condemned, Lord Eddard Stark had followed the way of every single Lord Stark before him - and the Kings of Winter before them - and spent time thinking before the reflecting pool under the shade of the great weirwood tree.

Sansa knew the place well.

It had been where her father had taken them all, one by one, and taught them what it meant to keep the ways of the old gods.

It was almost where she had stood when she was wed to... him.

It was where she had come when they retook Winterfell, when she was named Lady of Winterfell and took on all the responsibilities of it.

It was not far away from where Theon had died.

And where the Night's King had died after him - if that was even the right way to talk about it - near the weirwood as well.

She had gotten bigger, so much bigger, than she had been the first time she had been brought here alone to sit and learn. Her world had gotten bigger, too. The worn place in the big rock formed by generations of Stark men sitting looked no smaller.

While her hips had gotten wider since then, she had no hope of filling the impression. Unless doubling petticoats came into fashion, and Sansa had no intention of starting that trend herself.

And so she knew something was off as she approached even though it was barely before dawn and the sky was scarcely light yet.

Someone was on the other rock. The place her mother had so often sat even as she complained about feeling like she didn't belong there. The place she had sat as she listened to her father speak about honor and family and the responsibilities of a host and of a guest.

She felt herself tense, relax, and then tense again before she consciously realized it had to be Tyrion - no one else who would be outside this early was his size - and something was wrong with him.

And then she was running as fast as she dared given she couldn't see anything that might be hiding in the snow.

She tried not to look at the place where Theon had died.

She tried not to think about death at all.

"Lord Tyrion? How long have you been out here?"

"I needed a think." He looked up at her. "No intent to intrude."

He hadn't.

He fit better here than her mother ever had.

But there was something wrong and he wasn't talking the way he usually would have.

"How long have you been out here?" she repeated.

"Grace threw me out of court. Needed a think."

It was as if the hot water flowing underground ceased to warm the ground at Winterfell.

"You've been here since last night?"

He didn't answer, but he did look up at her finally.

The paleness of his skin was all the answer she needed. He had been outside too long.

"Lord Tyrion, you need to get inside. Now. You've been in the cold too long. Ser Brienne's waiting at the gate, we can get you inside if you need help."

"Didn't know if I still had guest-right."

"One you do, two you only need have asked if you did not, and three you need to get inside near the fire right now. You've been too cold too long."

The problem with getting dangerously chilled, her father had so often explained in various words, is that the worse the danger the greater the chance someone has lost the sense the gods gave goats regarding the importance of finding shelter and fire and food.

Tyrion had been outside long enough to no longer be thinking clearly.

He blinked at her, clearly trying to process what she had told him.

And failing.

"Please take me back," he pleaded out of seemingly nowhere. "I'll be good. Same agreement. Or there are ways to lie together that only bring pleasure to the woman. You could be happy and more. Just please take me back."

The words were fast and clear. They had to have been rehearsed.

That was his plan. Get security through marriage even if it meant debasing himself horribly. No matter what that required of him. Septa Mordane had hinted of such things in the most disapproving tones she used for anything.

Tyrion was resorting to the plan the women of Westeros were so often forced to depend on. Use marriage as a cover for selling your body to someone for life, because at least if he kept his word you'd be dry and fed.

It made her feel sick when she had understood what that deal really hid under the cover of calling it 'marriage' and it made her feel sick now.

(And she had quietly gone off to vomit when she had figured out Littlefinger had been trying to manipulate her life to force her to make that deal with him. After Arya had killed him far too quickly.)

"You aren't in your right mind. You need to warm up and break your fast before I'll listen to your suggestion. No arguing about it."

More confusion.

She reached for his hands, to try to pull him up whether he wanted to stand or not, and caught the flush when it turned his face from pale to reddened.

Sansa was a Northern woman who had been a Northern girl.

She was already screaming for Ser Brienne before she could think. The training all Northerners had to have to survive a winter north of the Neck was that strong.

Lord Tyrion Lannister had stopped trying to hold in his own heat.

* * *

Sansa leaned back in the chair and tried not to cry in front of everyone.

They'd had too much luck getting him warm for her to trust things weren't going to suddenly shift for the worse again.

Jaime had still been in bed, so there was a warm body in warm sheets who hadn't had the slightest thought of resisting having a freezing dwarf tossed in with him.

He and Podrick had been sharing in shifts to free up bedspace for others, so when the women had run for their room they had found Podrick on his way to the hall for a meal. Which meant they had someone with them who could strip a barely-conscious Tyrion and toss him into a bed without resistance.

"Don't ask how many times I've had to get him into a bed when he was drunk before you got married," Podrick had half-joked half-begged Sansa after the men had gotten Tyrion safely under the sheets into the warm.

There had already been extra firewood stacked beside the fire, so it was easy enough for Sansa to tend it higher while the men were dealing with Tyrion.

And they couldn't have managed any of it if Brienne hadn't been strong enough to carry Tyrion there. Sansa couldn't have done it, and Tyrion had still been awake enough to fight anyone who he didn't trust.

Sansa hadn't had to mentally account for how inexcapeably vulnerable Tyrion was before now. His personality made up for his size. She had never had a thought of physically harming him so she didn't have to notice the ways it didn't.

Now, she noticed. Same as she had finally noticed how much abuse the court gave him merely for being a dwarf at Joffrey's wedding.

If he woke up, things were going to change.

If.

This was the second time in under two days she'd seen him this close to dying in front of her. And the other, they'd at least been able to fight together.

There was nothing left to do here but sit and wait and pray that Tyrion could wake up again. She thought they had been fast enough, but he'd barely been conscious by the time they got him here and he was small enough to shed heat as fast as a child would.

Only the gods knew if he would see another day. Brienne was off looking for the maester or Samwell Tarley, but neither was going to be able to change anything, only tell them how to proceed with helping Tyrion recover if he lived.

"Don't hold it in," Jaime told her. "All of us spent time around the both of you in King's Landing while you were married. No use in pretending you don't care or that you aren't rattled, not with us. And no one who isn't close to you or your family is going to come into this part of the castle without an urgent reason."

She couldn't deny it.

Tyrion sneezed. Then, extremely weakly, "Jaime?"

Sansa could have danced. Waking on his own was the best sign they could have been given.

"You were too cold for too long. Got to get you warm." Jaime kissed his brother's forehead, the way someone trying to comfort a small child might. "Don't worry about anything but resting."

A noncommittal sigh.

Jaime looked over at Sansa. "He's out again."

"He's exhausted himself. But I think it's been long enough that waking on his own means he's going to survive this."

"Good." Jaime yawned and closed his own eyes again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing in this chapter is meant to be actual medical advice.
> 
> Even the professional-grade Merck Manual and Howdunit's Body Trauma books are intent on not giving instructions for more than the initial first aid for hypothermia, so I've had to think through what a maester might come up with given the complete situation.
> 
> The flush Sansa noticed is a real danger sign associated with paradoxical warming - the body's attempts to limit blood flow to the extremities fail, leading to a flushed patient who feels warm due to the increased blood flow to the skin.

Ser Brienne arrived soon enough with Maester Wolkan.

Jon and Samwell Tarly were practically at their heels, and they kept Sansa company in the hallway while the maester did his surprisingly brief evaluation.

"You’re a lucky man," he finally said loudly enough for Sansa to hear it clearly. "There’s no signs of even frostnip because the air there was close enough to freezing. And your core temperature didn’t have time to drop. You’ll be exhausted for a few days, and you’ll be sensitive to the cold for a while to come, but it’s a certainty you’ll survive this without losing anything or other lasting damage."

She felt the tension release.

She’d been there right when he stopped being able to keep his own heat, and she had acted fast enough.

It was the first time in her entire life Sansa had ever seen that happen, the first time she had been the one who had to respond to someone who had started the descent into freezing to death.

And she had remembered the right things and gotten help fast enough.

Even above freezing, not keeping your own heat in was eventually fatal.

Daenerys, Missandei, and Grey Worm came up behind Jon, silent and listening.

"That’s not to say you’re out of danger yet. I’d say, push warm food and stay in a body-warmed bed at least for the next quarter-moon. And no going outdoors for a complete moon, not in this wind. There’s no need with the covered passage to the feast hall intact. And even then don’t be alone."

Even if he’d understood her incorrectly, there went traveling south with Daenerys’s army. If the maester was saying that, then it would be a year before Tyrion should try to go as far as White Harbor in a covered coach.

He’d try, but he shouldn’t.

He’d managed to wear out at freezing in a night. And the maester was urging caution.

And pushing food.

Jon and Samwell shared a look and Sansa wondered if they had caught the same thing. Then Jon looked up at Brienne and nodded once.

So, she’d gotten the maester and them to come. But why all of them? The maester should have been enough. He’d served the entire time after forging his chain north of the neck.

Maester Wolkan knew what he was doing.

The maester stepped outside.

"I wouldn’t ask him to travel before the spring comes," he announced quietly. "Or to exert himself at all for a moon. I suspect he used up the last of his body’s reserves of strength staying alive last night."

He was saying this about a man who had fought wights less than two days ago.

But then he’d fallen asleep so quickly after Sansa had given him an accidental chance for it. And any time she’d gone through the feast hall yesterday, he’d been asleep near the fire.

Something was wrong. Some personal crisis he’d been keeping together undetected was falling apart.

To their credit, Daenerys and the remaining inner court looked concerned. At least the ones who were present, and at this hour and how quickly everything had happened Sansa wasn’t surprised Varys was missing.

Wolkan turned to Samwell. "You did some of the newcomer checks?" he asked quietly.

"Maester Aemon was blind. Jon and I have both done it before."

It took a moment for Sansa to understand he was talking about checking in on newcomers to the Wall.

"If he’s already run out his body’s ability to keep him warm this soon after coming North and under mild conditions..."

"We need to make sure nothing deeper is going on," Samwell finished softly. "And teach him better cold safety if not."

"I know he has a thicker cloak than he was wearing," Sansa told them just as quietly.

"He told us yesterday that everything he didn’t take into the crypt was destroyed when the wights entered that part of the castle," Brienne announced softly.

None of Daenerys’ court had known that. Sansa could tell.

Highly interesting. Nothing should have kept Tyrion from reporting that. So when did Tyrion find it out?

And the rest of the court clearly cared it had happened.

Tyrion had been cold enough and tired enough to be addled. Daenerys wasn’t acting the way Sansa would expect if he had been removed from the court.

But he hadn’t been wearing the Hand’s pin he’d had on underground when she found him in the godswood.

Jon and Samwell slipped inside. "Do you think you can stay awake a little longer?" Jon asked gently. "We need to see if anything made you more vulnerable to this happening. And I don’t mean you being a dwarf, you handled visiting the Wall better than this."

Tyrion said something too softly for Sansa to make out.

"I can tell you what’s wrong right now," Jaime said with enough force Sansa knew Tyrion wouldn’t be able to stop him from revealing whatever it was.

A rustle of fabric.

Artificially restrained responses.

Another rustle of fabric.

A very audible and exasperated sigh from Jon. "How long have your ribs been showing and is it getting worse or better?"

Extreme but silent reaction from the court.

None of them knew. Even Cersei and Magaery wouldn’t have been able to fake shock that well.

* * *

Jaime left the room when Jon and Samwell did, straightening his shirt one last bit at the door. "Podrick’s staying with him. They haven’t had any time alone together since he was his squire," he explained quickly.

"If we can all go someplace he won’t overhear if he wakes up?" Jon suggested.

They were soon all piled into the nearest meeting room.

It seemed like forever ago that she had planned out adjustments to the food stores here, to make allowances for the Free Folk in hiding who weren’t in the official head counts.

"Apparently he was barely being fed enough while in custody after the royal wedding," Jon started. "Then nothing awaiting execution and practically nothing crossing the Narrow Sea. He had a few good meals before Jorah Mormont caught him, a few good meals after. Then slavers took them both and did not feed him with intent for him to survive. He claims he’s been gaining some of it back, but he’s in bad shape now with the cold."

"No one else in the court had any experience with how much a dwarf should be eating," Missandei added, seeming to connect things in her mind. "And we were functionally under siege several times."

"He wasn’t in his right mind anymore when I found him, but I’d like to know how he got it in his head that he’d been ejected from her grace’s court entirely," Sansa asked, seeing an opening. "Because that, if you’ll pardon my presumption, doesn’t seem to be the case even though he wasn’t wearing the Hand’s brooch anymore."

Daenerys looked confused. Or as confused as she ever let herself look. "I don’t know how... Could that be why he backed out of the room?"

Jaime sucked in air from sheer shock fast enough his uneven teeth almost whistled.

"If Tyrion backed completely out of the room, then he thought he was out of the court and damned lucky you didn’t feed him to Drogon," Sansa answered with completely false complete calm. "No wonder he wasn’t acting or speaking with any sense. He’d thought he’d completely lost his position and any possessions other than the clothes on his back."

Silence.

"Beg pardon, your grace, but has anyone else in your court ever learned the courtly manners of King’s Landing?" Maester Wolkan asked.

More silence.

Sansa sighed. She looked straight at Missandei. "I would like to state plainly that my conversation with Lord Tyrion before the wights rose, which you reacted to with concern, was fundamentally me deferring to her grace’s claim on her Hand’s loyalty and not intended as the challenge you may have taken it as."

An elderly spearwife Sansa had befriended showed her face at the door, carrying a tray with a tureen on it. "Sansa? I hear, so I bring soup. He need."

She was getting better at using the Common Tongue. She was one of the Free Folk who had never spoken it before they were forced south as a matter of pride.

Her man still wouldn't.

"^Thank you, Thonya^," Sansa told her in the Old Tongue.

"^No one has seen him eat since before the battle^," Thonya added. "^Or so the kneeler men in the feast hall told Tormund^."

Thonya and her man had been regular visitors to Tormund's mead hall years ago when he still had one.

Befriending the Free Folk by taking care of their hiders in odd corners had given Sansa access to a gossip network no one else in either court knew existed. Well worth the effort, even if it hadn't been the right thing to do to start with.

Jon would recognize her. Jon would probably understand her words. But he didn't know Thonya's man was in hiding or who he had connections to from before the retreat south of the Wall.

Thonya's man, who no member or former member of the Night's Watch had ever seen, even when Mance had been King-Beyond-The-Wall, and who was intent on things remaining that way.

"I have responsibilities as my former husband's hostess to attend to," she told the rest of the room.

Daenerys didn't resist.

Sansa left with Thonya. She heard Jaime follow behind them.


	5. Chapter 5

Tyrion was asleep on his side when Sansa reentered the room, Podrick close against his back and Tyrion's skin still frighteningly colored.

She wished they didn't have to wake him up, but he had to eat something or he'd only get weaker. He'd gone far too long without as it was.

Podrick looked up at them, concern still all over his face.

Sansa tried to be ivory and steel, to keep the young squire and Tyrion calm even if that was all it was good for. "We have food for him. Something light enough it won't make him sick."

She heard Thonya put the tureen down on the little table in the room."Something warm," she added.

Podrick looked at Thonya uneasily.

"She's a friend of mine, and I trust her," Sansa told him. "She doesn't have a reason to want him harmed."

Exactly the opposite, but that wasn't Sansa's secret to tell. And no one in Thonya's family would forgive her for telling it without their permission.

"I hear men say he not eat since before battle, I hear he get cold sickness, I have sense to bring food."

Tyrion's beard twitched, as if he was starting to wake up.

Sansa reached out and touched the covers over his shoulder, shaking him slightly the way she used to in King's Landing whenever he'd passed out drunk and slept until food arrived.

He smiled a little in his sleep - it even seemed genuine for a moment - and blinked awake.

Tyrion breathed out a few of his favorite words, clearly remembering where he was and what had happened.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "You need to eat something, and then we can let you rest well enough to doze off again. But you do need to eat."

He shifted a little and she felt his shoulder move under her hand. Then, he looked away. "I need help," he admitted. "I'm too weak."

"No, you need help because you've exhausted yourself staying alive last night. And because I've become very aware how uncertain you are in your rights as a guest, I think I have to be involved."

Understanding entered his eyes. "No, you don't. I was foolish from worry and cares."

"Which is why I am not holding you to a single word you said to me between when we left the crypts together and when you were carried into this room, Lord Tyrion. But the fact remains you were uncertain enough to remove yourself from my roof and my table overnight in _winter_. And managed to find the exact place I sat when my Lord Father taught me the responsibilities of hosts and hostesses to do it in." She kept her voice just hard enough to make it clear she was not going to be budged.

If it took her holding the damned spoon for him herself, she would.

A flash of trepidation. "I didn't mean to intrude." And then he seemed to realize what he had said where he had said it. "Lady Sansa..."

She sighed in exasperation. "There is no sept here now, where else were you supposed to turn to the gods for help? It didn't feel like an intrusion."

The corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes started drifting shut again.

This was going to be more awkward than she'd thought.

* * *

It took both Jaime and Podrick to keep him upright and covered up.

"Can't," Tyrion protested when the bowl in Sansa's left hand was still far too far from empty. "Too full."

"Empty stomachs shrink," Thonya told them all in a reassuring voice. "Common in deep winter. Eat more often and you recover."

Tyrion finally seemed to really focus on her.

"Thonya's not used to speaking the Common Tongue," Sansa told him. "She's getting better at it, though."

"You're a Wildling?" he asked with a bit of wonder.

Apparently an elderly woman walking around with a dragonglass knife and an impressive flint dagger at her belt was not his mental image of a woman from north of the Wall. Some spearwives lived to be old, and Thonya's fighting against men was over decades ago when Mance got the Free Folk to stop fighting among themselves in the name of survival.

If she ever got Thonya's man and Tyrion into the same room, Sansa was sure his reaction was going to be hilarious. The Wolfrider was even less what anyone expected of their people.

"Free Folk," Thonya corrected with a bit of an edge.

"Beg your pardon." Tyrion seemed sincere. "This is only my second time north of the Neck." His eyes started drifting shut again.

"One last thing, and you can sleep," Sansa told him. "You said your other clothes were destroyed."

He opened his eyes fully. "The chest was smashed, everything was ripped."

"But it's still in the room you were staying in?"

He nodded slightly.

"I'm going to see if it's possible to at least get patterns out of what's left," she told him. "You'll need more than the one shirt before you can be moved to your own space again."

He visibly tried to think against the drowsiness as Jaime helped him lie down properly again. "That may work. Thank you."

Thonya made a dismissive noise. "Gilly told what you did underground. You the one who needs thanking. Only man have sense, have blade. Many shamed old men."

Tyrion's beard twitched as he let his eyes drift closed.

* * *

Tyrion hadn't been exaggerating when he told them every piece of clothing he hadn't worn underground had been destroyed past use during the battle.

Sansa hadn't realized how much she was hoping it was merely the estimation of a son of a Great House who'd never needed to judge the wear on a garment for himself. But no, the damage was in the middle of the fabric and not along the seams. There was no way to patch any of it without it being immediately apparent what had happened.

But for the backup plan of using the remains as patterns for new, it was better than she'd hoped.

Intact seams meant knowing lengths and angles.

Which meant not trying to get measurements off of Tyrion himself until he was fit to be out of bed. At the least, there were enough samples of intact shirt shoulders that she could make a pair of nightshirts that she was sure would fit him.

Well, one first as a trial and then another when he'd had a chance to try that one on.

Sansa had planned on spending today with people she cared about, and while it wasn't the way she had planned to it was better, far better, than having gotten to the godswood a moment later.

She gathered everything up and set out for her room, the better to spread out and work without being observed.

* * *

The men's room was on the way, a bit outside the family rooms as befit Podrick's position.

She stuck her head in the doorway as she walked past. "I think it's going to work," she murmured.

Tyrion didn't stir.

"He just fell asleep again," Jaime quietly told her. "He managed to eat more."

"Good."

"It's really all past mending?"

Sansa nodded. "All he has is what went underground with him and the people who care what happens to him."

Podrick and Jaime shared a very grim look.

"He's welcome under guest-right until he's fit to leave and no one can try to argue against it. Maester Wolkan's already established that as no sooner than the coming of spring by his judgment, so there's to be no worrying about that. It's going to be years before anyone can try to push him out. After that, I have an idea. But I'm not ready to talk about it yet."

Tyrion stirred slightly.

"It's just me," Sansa told him. "Nothing to worry about. I was walking by."

He barely opened his eyes and tried to focus on the bundle in her arms.

"You were right, it's all past mending. But that's not something you need to worry about. You're my guest, I'm taking care of it."

He closed his eyes again, seeming to accept her words and reassurance.

"Ser Brienne said she'd bring food for all of you when she takes the midday meal herself," Sansa told Jaime and Podrick. She paused a moment. "It doesn't feel like it can still be morning," she admitted.

"You were up early, and my little brother still has his life because of it."

She didn't know why she had been up early. No one would have faulted her for sleeping late after she had done so much the day after the battle.

She yawned.

No one would fault her for sleeping now. She had saved a life before the sun was fully risen. Most of what was left to do was rightly Jon or Daenerys' to arrange, not her responsibility, and they both knew what had happened.

Jaime was looking at her the way he had sometimes when they were goodbrother and goodsister. Casually protective.

"Ser Jaime, may I get you to send Ser Brienne to me after she comes to you at midday? I think after the events of the morning I require a rest myself."

Jaime nodded. "It would be a pleasure, Lady Sansa. And far less than you should be able to ask of us."

"Not now," she told him.

She knew more than he thought she did, and she wasn't ready to deal with any of it yet.

She would have to.

Chances were the Lannister brothers came as a set now, and keeping Jaime north of the Neck was probably the only way Daenerys would feel comfortable having him behind her when she went after Cersei's life.

And then there was his role in defending Brienne and protecting Sansa herself.

And the morning was moving toward midday with every second she stood in thought.

She took her leave, walked to her room, piled the remnants of Lord Tyrion Lannister's independent life into her chair by the fireplace, and flopped onto the bed clothed for a well-deserved sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Sansa woke to the smell of food and a knock at the door.

"My lady? Ser Jaime said you'd requested I wake you."

She stretched. "Yes, thank you. Please come in."

Ser Brienne opened the door and carried in a tray. "I thought we might like to eat as well, and leave dealing with Lord Tyrion to Ser Jaime and Podrick."

It would have been forward to suggest it if they hadn't done exactly this so many times while Sansa was seeking refuge at Castle Black, just to give them both a spare moment away from the men.

"Give me a moment to clear the chair. I've got it all piled the way I want it."

Brienne looked at the bundle uneasily as Sansa set it on the foot of the bed. "That's everything Lord Tyrion brought to Westeros with him?"

"And the chest, which is splinters now."

Brienne sighed as she set the tray down on the table, which was only barely large enough for it by design. It was hard to bring furniture into the Lord's Chamber because of the turns in the final stairs from the family's hall. "He deserves better than this."

Sansa couldn't disagree.

* * *

They sat talking after they were done eating, enjoying a rare moment of peace.

Then the conversation turned back to the revelations of the morning.

"I think I can get the measurements for at least a nightshirt out of what's left. The seams are intact."

"It would be easier if he was simply shrunk compared to other men. Pardon me, my lady, but I've had to do a fair bit of sewing for myself when the only examples I had for a pattern were made for men. Or for women much shorter."

"No need for pardon, I had the same thought myself in King's Landing when he was trying to get a new doublet and sleeves for Joff's wedding. Even if his limbs were just shorter. But there's so much more than that, or it doesn't fit right..." She sighed. "Honestly, if Cersei hadn't looked down on me making my own clothes here as a girl nearly grown I would have tried myself when we were in King's Landing."

"If you wanted an extra pair of hands to help, I wouldn't consider it beneath my honor." Brienne's words were careful. "At least for the sake of preserving what's left of his dignity."

Sansa nodded. "I was hoping to sew fast enough to have something done by tonight, but I had to rest. By then it should be safe to have him in a warmed bed without needing skin-to-skin contact to keep him warm. And that should be enough to find out if I've gotten the right measurements before I make anything else."

"I think everyone would understand if you only appeared at dinner, my lady. By now, everyone has heard some version of what happened this morning."

"How is the queen handling all of this?"

"Apparently she only heard Missandei's version of the events in the crypt, and she didn't see Tyrion between the chaos and the all clear. The queen had been too deep in grief for Jorah and Viserion to seek out the rest of the story."

"And judged Tyrion's claims accordingly?"

"Even when Varys told her the same, it seems. The remains of the court was taking their meal together in a closed meeting room when I came up."

Sansa sighed. "A monarch cannot admit an error of that scale. Not without showing weakness she'll resist suggesting."

"My understanding of what I've overheard is that Lord Tyrion had tried to save face in the moment by suggesting he was a bad fit to begin with and suggesting Missandei was a better choice. Her grace's reaction to his statement was what made him think he was exiled from the court."

Sansa leaned back. "As the saying goes, the Hand wipes. It's not a position for an advisor, it's a position for an enforcer of like temperament. That's why Robert wanted Father to run the country for him. They'd been ward brothers for years and Father knew his preferences well."

"Which says something about the late Lord Lannister. He only resigned from Aerys' court when he finally felt personally slighted."

She grimaced. "I had tried not to think of him being Aerys' Hand for so many years while I was in King's Landing. Crossing an actual dragon would be over faster than crossing him."

Sansa had done her best to stay far out of Lord Lannister's way, and he had seemingly accepted it as being properly cowed by his reputation.

"At least there's no question of Lord Tyrion rejoining the court. Unless her grace wishes to wait for him."

"You never spent time with Cersei alone. I did, back when she was trying to groom me into a compliant wife for Joff and then when she could mock me over my betrothal to Tyrion. She only cares about herself and her children, and her children are now all dead or unborn. She will let people starve if it serves what she thinks are her own interests, and I assure you she will not only not feel guilt but she'll feel pride over being strong enough to do so. And Tyrion's been trying to earn sisterly affection from her since before he was old enough to understand she blames him for their mother's death. I don't want them on the same side of the Neck ever again if I can prevent it."

A long pause.

"I know the rumors about she and Ser Jaime..."

Sansa waved her off. "Everyone knows the rumors were true. My father was killed because it was so apparent there would be no denying it once the question was raised. My uncle the Lord Hand Arryn as well. But from everything I've seen... The Free Folk have different ideas about freedom and slavery, even from Northerners like me, and I've been trying to listen. I think Cersei thinks her twin is her property somehow. She's older, she's the one who had real power, and she's the one who actually wants power. She knows exactly how to manipulate him and thinks she has the right."

Brienne smiled affectionately. "Give Ser Jaime a warm meal, something to swing a sword at, someone to look impressed at him for doing it, and a warm bed to sleep in after, and he's content with the world."

"From everything I saw, it was driving their father mad that he doesn't have a drive to power. He was supposed to be the perfect heir, at least before he was Kingsguard, but he doesn't have the drive for it."

"And that Tyrion did, from the talk I heard."

Sansa had to agree.

She stood with a sigh. "We'd better get started."

* * *

It wasn't Sansa's best work ever, but she hadn't planned that it would be.

And it was done before sunset.

Brienne saw her staring out the window and commented, "It really doesn't feel like two days since we thought we were all about to die, does it?"

"More like two lifetimes." Sansa tried not to think of eating with Theon at the end of all things. She would have time to mourn later, she reminded herself again and again. Now the living still needed her. "And it was so close to going the other way."

She shivered at the thought. If she and Tryion had missed any of the wights they had killed, it might have meant being overpowered before Arya had done what she'd done.

"The same where we were," Brienne admitted.

"A proper honorable start to a knighthood, fighting impossible odds," Sansa couldn't help but tell her. "Although it's more traditional for the knighthood to follow it, if I understand the stories and histories correctly."

She glanced over in time to see Brienne's grin. "The maester taught me the same."

Really, Brienne felt more like an older cousin than a sworn sword now.

That caught in Sansa's mind.

She was going to need to form a proper household once they had the breathing room for it, and it wasn't only Hands that Tryion's advice to Daenerys applied to. Sansa would need a sworn sword who could report to her at any time for a master-at-arms and commander of the guard, especially since they were few enough in number one person would need to serve as both, and Brienne might be the right fit if everything aligned the way it might.

The way they feared it would.

She sighed. It wasn't the time. "Let's see how the men are doing, and then we can remind the feast hall that we're just as alive as the rest of them."

* * *

She grew more anxious inside as they walked the hallway. She hadn't said a public word about her own sewing since Cersei had judged her for it, and while she had made it clear she'd be arranging this she hadn't said a word about the fact her hands would be doing any of the work. It had probably been obvious to Jaime and Podrick when she kept the scraps with her, but Tyrion had been so groggy...

And then they were at the door.

Tyrion was awake and clearly aware, thank any of the gods who might be responsible. Podrick was asleep next to him, and Jaimie was sitting at the table with his shirt back on.

No one had said it, and Sansa was too much a lady to comment on it herself even if Tyrion wouldn't have possibly gotten offended, but the clear advantage of his height in the events of the day was that there was no real reason for anyone but him to end up out of trousers to keep him warm. What heat was he possibly going to get from even Podrick's shins, after all?

Tyrion looked over when they walked in. "My lady, Ser Brienne," he greeted them weakly.

"How are you feeling, my lord?" Sansa asked as the obvious response.

"Tired. But I can't sleep anymore."

"I think we're all offschedule from the battle still," she assured him. "And resting is the most important thing right now." 

"And eating," Jaime helpfully provided.

Tyrion gave him a look that made it clear to Sansa asking if they needed anything from the kitchens was not going to be welcome.

"We have a bit of dignity to deliver on our way to our dinner," Sansa told the brothers. "I'll be back later to find out if it fits right. Hopefully it's a bit large instead of a bit small." She handed the nightshirt to Jaime. "If he starts feeling cold at all, it's too soon."

Jaime nodded once.


End file.
